


Unworthy

by TearoomSaloon



Series: Girl in the Mask, Boy in the Sand [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Comfort Sex, Dark Rey, Eventual Smut, F/M, First Time, Fluff and Smut, Hurt/Comfort, Loss of Virginity, Rey Solo and Scavenger Ben, Role Reversal, Some Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-12
Updated: 2016-03-12
Packaged: 2018-05-26 07:32:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6229312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TearoomSaloon/pseuds/TearoomSaloon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She was a mask the galaxy feared. She was power, cruelty, and destruction wrapped into a dark package of cool hatred and hot impulse. She roared and knees dropped.</p><p>She howled at him and he stood tall. He dared touch her and her exterior began to crack. She was unraveling like yarn under his fingers and there wasn't a damn thing she could do to stop it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unworthy

**Author's Note:**

> Rey's Knight name is Kyra after her original production name, Kira, and the fact that it looked weird without the Y.
> 
> She and Ben are not related, their roles are just flipped.

It started like a hurricane in her bones. Twisting, whirling, all consuming. It hurt to breathe, her lungs full of water, of brine and waves and choking currents. The winds whipped hard around her unprotected face and the sand mocked her gashed countenance. How weak, how incapable. Unpredictable. Cowardly.

The tempest would continue until she returned to the mount each dawn, drawn up by his calls. Snoke had sent her to meditate on her failings and all she got was the constant cry from across the galaxy by a wiry desert rat decorated in moles. He didn't want to be reaching out to her—she burned him, as she should. She would sink her talons deep into the flesh of his arms given the chance, drag him from his light and swim down into the depths. His lungs were for air and he would suffocate in her cold scaly grasp, her long shimmering tail a beautiful lie to cover the ocean's cruelty.

Today, as she listened impatiently to the waves crash below, he felt closer. His heartbeat thrummed loudly in her ears, matching time with her own. He was either on the approach or consciously trying for once to cross their bond. He feared her and had avoided their connection to this point; she saw no reason for his behavior to suddenly flip.

But in her closed eyes, deep in the waves, she saw his determined snarl. The scavenger boy, decorated in hard-worn cottons and sand-whipped hides. He was drowning, drowning down…

He pressed harder in the consecutive days, his attempts not as stealthy as he hoped, for she always caught him between her long white teeth, red mouth hungry to taste his blood.

She met his eyes on the fifth day, fierce and so delicately brown, like the warm caramel of her morning caf. He was tall before her but she was strong in the ground. She rippled the soil and he vanished like smoke across a dark lake. His light burbled to the water's surface and stayed, plaguing her for the remainder of the day. The last thing she needed on this retreat was the kiss of the Light.

A month of this torment and she fled the dark forested island for the solace of space. She couldn't bear to think of him any longer, his mind heavy in her brain. She would tear her hair from her skull if she waited a moment longer to evacuate and ascend. Up in the quiet of the stars he could not reach her—did not know where she floated. All was silent…for a while. Then he returned.

She breathed fire at him in a dream, her tail thick and black and scaled, lashing behind her tautly coiled legs. Smoke poured from her mouth.

"What is it you _want_?" she howled, claws scraping at the metal of the floor.

"I want you to come back."

"Back _where_? I was never _yours_."

He nodded, his black hair falling like soft shadows around his jaw. "Rey…"

"That is not my _NAME_!" The ceiling shook. Her wings spread wide. An inferno roared out of her long armored neck.

She sat in the ashes when the debris cleared, her limbs once again her own. "Kyra," she scolded at the ground, chiding at her knighted name. Rey Solo was dead like her father. Dead, dead, dead.

 

The scavenger couldn't let her have peace.

Another week of silence and he reappeared, taunting, teasing, driving her insane. Hands to her temples, she tried in vain to block him from her thoughts. He stuck on like a leech, sucking dry her patience and will to fight back. She was the more powerful of the two, she was the wicked, wild darksider and he an apprentice of the light, but still he wore her down to the quick.

She opened her hands to him in this dream, her eyes pins of ice. The Force rubbed between her ankles like a violent animal. "Ben the Nobody come to play once again."

"Can I convince you to come to me?" he asked, his face twisted in disgust.

She gripped his chin harshly, dragging him down. "What does the little rat prince want _this_ time?"

"I need to see you."

"Desperate for more scars?"

"You carry more marks from my blade than I from yours."

She hissed, fingers tightening. "What do I gain?"

"Whatever you want you can take, but I need to see you."

With a sickening churning in her stomach, she obliged his request. The Supreme Leader would chastise her when she returned to his side, but right now she had an opening to end this boy once and for all. A cautious step led her through the dense forests of the island on which he hid. This was not somewhere from her old memories, not a place that Skywalker had ever taken her.

In the jungle heat she left her thick outer cloak on her ship, opting to keep the helmet that protected her marred visage. The scar disgusted her, reminded her of how _weak_ she had been before the scavenger. She had offered to train him in that moment, how _pathetic_.

He stood on the high ground, hands behind his back. His hair had grown so slightly, the black locks curling around his pale face in the gentle breeze. He wore the old coat, yellow bloodstripes up the arms like a rebellious hero. She wondered if it still smelled of Han.

"I want to see your face."

She thought briefly of hissing before she unlocked the helmet's mechanisms, pulling the black monstrosity from her head. Its saber-toothed maw cleared her temple and she shook out her hair, loose strands dangling down by her ears and scattering on her neck.

His step to her was quick and he raised a hand, stretching it out to her. She growled—openly growled—and swatted him away.

"May I touch it?"

"No."

He looked crestfallen a moment, as if she denied him the right to breathe.

"Why do you want to be familiar with me?" Wasn't she the one with the infatuation, not him? Or curiosity, perhaps that was a better word. She wished to extinguish his light like the moon swallowed the sun, covetous and encompassing. His beauty was a beast she never allowed herself to look in the eyes.

She wanted him to touch her, but she did not want the words to spill from her mouth, for once they were sound, they were truth, and she could never take them back from the heavy air. He read something in her eyes and reached to her anyway, his fingers falling on her long-ago burned flesh. It was hideous, she knew. She'd looked herself in a mirror since the fight in the snow. If she weren't a monster before, she certainly looked the part now.

"How can you touch me without combusting?" she asked quietly, her eyes downcast like the dreary sky before a summer rain.

"I lived in a desert for more than half my life; I can handle the heat."

"But I am hatred, not heat."

"You're not hatred." He was bold and he tipped her chin so she was forced to meet his gaze. "You're lost. Lonely, almost. Lonely like me."

Kyra Ren shook her head, teeth grit in a mouth of flames. "You cannot know the depth of the feeling, the _void_ it builds…"

His other hand found her cheek and she shivered, trying to pull backwards, but he held her calmly, cautiously. "You remind me every time we speak that I'm a _desert rat_. Alone all my years. I know the ache for belonging."

That's from where it stemmed, her fascination with him. They never fit in with others, never played well or understood what it meant to be…loved. Her family had tried but they had feared her from day one, born wrapped in a cocoon of influence. His family left him to starve.

"Have you been searching me down because of this?" She was referring to the buzzing now filling her head. He either knew or he didn't.

"It's unbearable."

"Come closer."

He pressed his forehead to hers and it was blinding. Her breath caught in her trachea, ripping hard at her tongue. The world around her melted a moment, returning when he drew away, his light eyes brilliant, never so much as stained fully by the darkness. Her stomach was full of heavy stones.

They parted quickly after the touch, her fleeing back to her ship. She left the orbit of this planet in an incredible haste. In hyperspace, she was able to breathe again, sweat thick and sticky on her brow. She would be back and looking for him this next time, that she knew. She couldn't keep away, not after feeling such…peace in touching him. Her beautiful scavenger, waking her at last.

She caught him unawares on another ocean planet, for he was drawn to water like an earthworm, sacrificing shelter and protection for the cool touch of the rains. First, she hissed, punctuating her words with her blade. Then, she threw him to the ground, pinning him forcefully under her lithe but smaller body. He was broad but she was strong, and she dipped to reap her prize.

Her kiss was sweet at first. Tender, with his hands on her back. A moment longer and she bit down, knocking against his teeth with enough force to bruise his lip. She left him dazed and sated on the sandy soil as she made her retreat, parting until they danced like twin twisters once more.

She heard his irritation across the bond for the rest of the week, angry and somewhat ashamed of the blue-purple splotch that colored his otherwise dust-rose lips. At an earlier time she would laugh, now she only smirked.

* * *

 The General raised an eyebrow when he approached, his return not expected for another few weeks. He was supposed to be off doing something important but instead he was toying around with vicious women— _a_ vicious woman, he corrected himself; there was only one who held his attention.

"I met your daughter," he said with a feigned disgust. He was wearing her mark on his face.

Leia stiffened. "How…"

"We share a bond." His tone was careful; he had no wish to put her in danger. "She called to me."

"And you responded?"

"It's hard to avoid when it feels like claws are sunk deep into your mind and nothing else will retract them."

She nodded slowly, her eyes settling on his magnificent bruise.

Ben's hand went to his lip. "What do you want me to do?"

"It's not your job to do anything." Leia sighed. "It was her father's. Now it's mine. Don't feel like you have to concern yourself."

But he did, and he rose to meet her at the next insistence.

She hid on grey planets with dark forests and little daylight. She was never near the water when he found her, somehow afraid of her reflection and what she would find in the mirroring pools. The first two times she fled. The third, she stayed, allowing him to approach.

"My mother knows," she muttered when his fingers untangled her hair from its stately wraps. "You told her, didn't you?"

" _You_ tipped her off with that bruise, the one right here." He pointed to his upper lip where the color of a dark wine had lasted the better half of a week.

Her tone was mocking. "Should I have kissed it and made it better?"

"Who knows, it's in the past now."

"Does the past not matter?"

"Not always."

She kissed gingerly this time, her hands lightly cupping his face. They rolled back into his hair and he was lost above the galaxy of her. Sparks of emotions fizzled onto his side of their bond, things so tightly wrapped and shortly fused that he barely caught whispers of their meanings. One large one remained—the sense of belonging. They were so alone, but together they were whole.

Her gentle touch turned harsh at his neck, sucking an enormous red splotch under his jaw. It stung and he pulled away from her teeth, their tips grazing across his skin. That would not fade with the dawn.

He couldn't fancy the thought of seeing Leia before it healed, but his attendance was called and he had no routes of escape. It was too high on his neck to cover with clothing and too low for a helmet.

The General's eyes narrowed when they met his. "Having fun on the job?"

Ben ducked his head, ashamed. "Not exactly."

"I never pegged you to be a bit of a tramp."

He could argue his point, but that would reveal his foolishness and need to return to Ren and her black, necrotic heart. The words died in his lungs and he shrugged, opting to be the village whore instead of the shamed man in love with the devil.

Another month had to pass before he saw her again, him tied up in a mission intended to keep him from sliding off with female company. It worked well in the sense that she was repelled by his companions and stayed far from his mind. Once he was free, he took a craft quietly in the night and returned to her side, the aching in his chest having grown insufferable since last he looked upon her face.

Her hand felt for his and lacing their fingers caused a wave of calm to wash over his mind. She wore a pained, melancholic expression as she reached to lock a curl behind his ear. Tugging him forward, words became unnecessary for this interaction. He would follow wherever she led.

"It's time," she said when their journey led to a small rustic cottage built into the mountainside. Her belongings were scattered about the front room—this is where she called home away from her master. She brought him into the bedroom in a caution he'd never seen her display. It was not large and there were only necessities—the opposite of how he expected her to live.

"Time?"

She nodded, pushing his jacket from his shoulders. He let it fall and he hadn't a clue why. "We'll keep dancing until the end of the universe if not. So it's time."

He bit his lip. "I've never…"

"Neither have I."

Her hands were quick on his buttons and buckles while his trembled at the thought of undressing her. This is not how he expected their interactions to culminate—maybe he thought they'd go back to fighting, or she'd come willingly to the light. He didn't picture this, with her, out of a need to belong, not a whim of love. He wasn't sure he wanted to do this without love.

"Don't be such a romantic," she chuckled under her breath, moving his fingers away to unfasten her great cloaks and bold armor.

"Is it wrong to want this the right way?"

"There is no right and wrong in the matters of flesh."

"So I will have to accept giving myself up to someone who yearns for my blood?"

It was a lie as he said it and it was a lie as it entered her ears. "I do not _yearn_ for _blood_ ," she said with a roll of her eyes. "And you do not have to give me anything."

"That is what I promised you when I asked you to come to me."

"Deals change."

"I want to do this for the right reason."

She stopped her hunt down his clothing. Her fingers twitched a moment and she withdrew. "All right."

"Can you make it the right reason?"

"Maybe. I don't know. Will you at least wait the night with me?"

Yes, that much he could grant.

She was small against his chest, her heat incredible to be near. Her skin was punctuated by little white strips and spots, all her scars visible in the light of the stars. He could say he was not already falling, with her hair bleeding fragrance and her breath short and sweet, but he would be a liar and the world would laugh at his ignorance.

* * *

 Going without his touch became unbearable.

Loneliness sucked at every inch of her body until she could find him again, all parts of her willing. He came to her too slowly and she wasted not a minute for him to find her hiding in the trees. He was alone and she dragged him down by the collar, a desperate need heavy on her lips.

He tasted the same and she relaxed, one fear banished to the lowest level of chaos.

"Is something wrong?" he asked, his eyes filled with concern. He was such a stupid boy.

She nodded. "I die without you. Every day, another little piece."

"Do you mean—"

"Come with me."

He followed as she raced through the woods, stopping occasionally to make sure he was real, to yank him harder into her arms and kiss his soft lips. She was afraid he'd disappear, that this would be nothing but another dream, but he was tangible, physical, and he burned beside her.

In the room of her previous failure, she stripped him like a hungry creature would strip bones, starved and feral and wild. They became a tangle of limbs, a tangle of teeth. She _needed_ him, wanted to fill the gaping hole of tender longing in her chest. Her equal, oh, her beautiful, opposite equal. He was so light she feared she would burn.

His hands stopped her when she tried to quicken the pace, to finish this joining of bodies. He gazed up with such an emotion in his eyes that she felt small, helpless, and paralyzed.

"The _right_ way," he said calmly, taking both of her wrists. "There's no need to rush."

"I might crumble if I wait."

"Then crumble into me."

He rearranged their limbs, hovering over her on his forearms. His lips met hers agonizingly slowly, his touch more loving than anything she could remember experiencing. He waited for her to calm before continuing, mouth pressing to her cheeks, her jaw, her throat. He did not bite like she had, his kiss smooth and wonderful. Ben raised his head from her collarbone, his eyes light and mirthful, smiling before his mouth caught up. He kissed her forehead and she knew she was undeserving of him.

She let her hands weave into his hair, careful not to pull or tug roughly, following the pace he set. He attended to one breast and then the other, lips and nose no more than ghosting her skin.

Jealousy reared. "Have you still never done this?"

"I've never known a woman before you."

A hand trailed down her stomach and looped into dark curls that grew between her hips. She was close to slapping him but he was tender, delicate, and pleasure surged up her spine. His lips found her thighs and he glanced to her before continuing down. The amount of emotions in his eyes made her bury her face in shame.

"We're both here," he said quietly against her skin. "This isn't the desire of one."

"I'm unworthy."

"Look at me."

She shook her head, an arm across her eyes.

"Please, look at me."

His gaze was strong. Determined, bold. "You're worthy of me. I need you here with me. You are the only one I want to share this experience with."

She wiped guiltily at the tears ebbing down her cheeks.

"Hey." He rose to meet her, his body warm on her skin. "I love you, or else I wouldn't be here."

Her voice was a whisper. "Why?"

"Because I can see who you are under all your shields. I love that woman, not the one who steps against me on the battlefield. She's here with me…aren't you, Rey?"

She nodded and swiped harder at her traitorous eyes. This wasn't a time for crying.

"There's no need to be alone anymore."

He kissed her, his mouth warm on hers. No matter what he said, she would never deserve him. She would gladly take him, but she was not deserving of his affection. He was too good to her.

Once satisfied, he descended again, his lips pressing to a sensitive spot on her body, one she'd never dared to explore. It felt strange and only mildly pleasant, but it was not horrible. Better still when he went to touch inside her, a long digit smooth and gentle, pressing and stroking until it found somewhere that made her back arch and her throat curl.

"This isn't fair," she moaned softly, her fingers harsh in his hair.

"You don't believe me so I have to prove myself."

"But it doesn't do anything for you."

"It makes me happy." He kissed her with his soiled lips and cleaned his finger with his mouth. "Making you feel better makes me happy."

"What an unnecessarily difficult bid at happiness."

He chuckled. "A worthy challenge." One of his hands stroked the inside of her thigh, tracing circles across her scars. "Do you…are you ready?"

She nodded. "Do you know what you're doing?"

"Not a clue."

He was hot and terrible inside of her.

It stung badly when he entered and she cried out, her body in flames. Tears came again and she grit her teeth, the pain overwhelming.

But his face was one of pure pleasure and she refused to let him stop when he jerked backwards. It hurt, yes, but after all he'd done for her, she could allow him this. Would allow him this. His satisfaction…it came first before her needs.

The pain subsided after what felt like torturous eons and she was only aware of the friction coursing steadily with his thrusts. He seemed slightly nervous, his angles never quite the same and his rhythm unsteady. His breath was hot and it scattered on her neck, fizzing her mind into dust.

She locked her legs around his hips when his confidence returned—it felt right, her body tight against his. One of her hands left its place scratching up his back and dipped to the heat between her legs, stroking and playing with her own pleasure.

He came first and she was set off immediately after, her world fuzzy and white. Their bond cracked open and out spilled emotions like hot wax on unguarded skin. His affection burned into her, branded her, filled up the empty spaces in her chest. He was falling in love with her so deeply that tears again pooled in her eyes, a slurry of feelings settling like heavy stones in her stomach. He couldn't, he couldn't, she shouldn't _allow_ him to—

He collapsed with a groan by her side, his arms draped lamely across her body. They could do nothing but breathe in the stillness of the room.

"Are you crying again?" he asked when the drunken milky haze of his orgasm subsided.

"It's not right for you to _care_ about me this much."

He rolled her onto her side and kissed away the tears, pressing his brow to hers. Tenderness and belonging leaked from his side to hers, cradling her softly. He lifted a hand to stroke her cheek, pressed his lips to kiss her scar. "If you hadn't let me in, I never would have started to care. Now I'm cursed."

"How do you know I care?"

"I can feel it like the beating of my heart. It sits here in my ribs." He took her hand and laid it gently across his chest. His heart fluttered like a bird. "Do we always have to be so alone, Rey?"

"No." She sighed, wiping the rest of her shame from her face. "Not after tasting something this unbearably sweet."

His hand smoothed down her back, pulling her tighter against his chest. "Will you come back with me if I ask?"

"Only for you, and only if you ask."

**Author's Note:**

> I've been into a doing role reversal for over a week. No idea if I should write another? Maybe let me know?


End file.
